Justin Bieber Loses Over 3.5 Million Followers In Instagram Purge: See How Other Celebs Fared
Instagram went all Noah’s Flood on its subscribers on Thursday, when the photo sharing app purged millions of spam and fake accounts from the social network platform.
After Instagram — who scored the highest follower count loss (18.9 million, 29 percent) — Justin Bieber had the second biggest hit. He lost over 3.5 million followers (14.85 percent), according to this infographic chart by developer Zach Allia.
The oft-shirtless singer is now left with 20.27 million followers, down from his original 23 million.
But if the Biebs is even the slightest bit bothered about losing useless, fake accounts, he hasn’t commented publicly yet.
As a result of the purge or rapture, as some are calling it, Justin has moved from the No. 1 most followed celebrity on Instagram to No. 2. The new ruler of celebrity Instagram is Kim Kardashian, who lost 1.3 million followers (which is the 3rd biggest loss), leaving her with 22.21 million followers.
In other celebrities’ followers loss news, Ariana Grande lost 1.5 million and now has 20.21 million followers. Rihanna misplaced 1.15 million followers, Selena Gomez lost 1.1 million. Kendall Jenner lost 906,897 followers and Beyonce took a hit of 831,971.
More can be seen at the Infographic above.
In short, celebrities experienced the greatest loss because they attracted more spam than the millions of ordinary users also affected by Instagram’s purge. But, since the cull about getting rid of dead weight, this isn’t a big deal.
In fact, although it’s reported many people are angry over Instagram followers losses, this is actually business as usual.
BBC News reports, Instagram routinely removes accounts to limit spam and prevent users buying followers to appear more popular or engaging in practices that are prohibited.
Rapper Akon reportedly lost 56 percent of his followers in the sweep, while Ma$e lost more than a million followers and deleted his account after he was accused of paying for more.
In a blog posted last week, Instagram warned its users the purge was coming.
Chief executive/founder Kevin Systrom wrote, “We’ve been deactivating spammy accounts from Instagram on an ongoing basis to improve your experience.”
“As part of this effort, we will be deleting these accounts forever, so they will no longer be included in follower counts. This means that some of you will see a change in your follower count.”
After Thursday’s rapture, Instagram posted a message on Twitter which reads,
Your follower counts are now correct. If you saw a change today, check out our news from last week to learn more: http://t.co/b9V6qUgdFF
— Instagram (@instagram) December 18, 2014
[Images via Instagram/Shots]
